Sir Thomas Smith's On the Wages of a Roman Footsoldier (OWRF) is virtually unknown to modern scholarship and, although it is the first original work written in England to use the evidence of ancient coins, it has previously played no part in the history of numismatics. Yet it clearly deserves to be better known. It throws new light on the 'Cambridge circle, ' the group of academics-turned-politicians who played a crucial role in the smooth...